TODAY – MAR 3, 2011 – IN CANADIAN HISTORY

THE EAGLE IS BANDEDBoston Massachusetts – Alan Eagleson indicted on 32 counts of embezzlement, fraud and racketeering; former head of the NHL Players Association and Toronto hockey lawyer refuses to go to the US to face the grand jury; beginning of three years of legal wrangling.

1975

Also On This Day...

Yellowknife NWT – Thomas Berger 1933- starts public hearings into social and environmental costs of planned 4,184 km pipeline; Justice of the BC Supreme Court. Here he is consulting with a Dene group.

1890

And in Today's Canadian Birthdays...

Norman Bethune 1890-1939
medical doctor, born on this day at Gravenhurst Ontario in 1890; dies in 1939 in China. Bethune started medical studies at McGill, served as a stretcher bearer in a field ambulance unit of the Canadian army in France in 1915, then after a bout of tuberculosis, studied thoracic surgery and joined the surgical team at Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital. Disillusioned with medical practice – many of his patients grew sick again when they returned to squalid living conditions – he visited the Soviet Union in 1935, and secretly joined the Communist Party. He opened a health clinic for the unemployed in Montreal, then served as a battlefield doctor in the Spanish Civil War (1936), where he innovated mobile field hospitals (the picture shows him in the uniform of the Mackenzie-Papineau Batallion). He went to China in 1938 to help fight the Japanese invasion, devised a mobile medical unit that could be carried on two mules, but died of blood poisoning in 1939 due to the lack of penicillin. He is regarded as a hero in China and is called Pai-ch’iu-en – White Seeks Grace. His boyhood home in Gravenhurst is now a museum.
Also James Doohan 1920-
WW II military pilot, actor, was born on this day at Vancouver BC in 1920. Doohan has played chief engineer Commander Montgomery Scott (Scotty) in Star Trek; Damon Warwick in The Bold and the Beautiful , and Pippin in Homeboys In Outer Space.

Also Alexander Graham Bell 1847-1922
speech therapist, audiologist, inventor, was born on this day at Edinburgh Scotland in 1847; dies at Beinn Bhreagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia Aug 2, 1922. In 1870, Bell settled in Brantford, Ontario, where he developed the telephone from 1874-76. In 1876, he and his father made the first long-distance call between Brantford and Paris, Ontario. The call was routed through Toronto, so the actual distance was 109 km. He patented his invention in 1876, and founded the Bell Telephone Company.

In Other Events…

1995

Toronto Ontario – For the second time in the 1990s, real estate developer Bramalea Inc. seeks court protection from its creditors.

1991

Vancouver BC – Celine Dion wins Juno Awards for Best Album and Best Female Vocalist; George Fox wins Best Male Country Vocalist; Colin James wins Best Single and Top Male Vocalist; Rita McNeil wins Best Female Country Vocalist; Prairie Oyster win Best Country Group; Blue Rodeo win Best Group; Tragically Hip win Entertainer of the Year.

Montreal Quebec – Canadien Jean Beliveau scores one goal in a 5-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings; second NHL player to score 1,000 career points.

1965

New York City – Canadian actor Christopher Plummer stars as Count von Trapp in the film adaptation of the popular Broadway hit, The Sound of Music, opening on this day; his co-stars are Julie Andrews and Eleanor Parker.

1964

Ottawa Ontario – Parliament approves change of name of Trans-Canada Air Lines to Air Canada; to take effect January 1, 1965.

1962

Ottawa Ontario – Cairine Wilson dies at age 77; Canada’s first woman senator, Canada’s first woman delegate to the United Nations

Winnipeg Manitoba – Ambroise-Dydime Lepine l834-1923, heading the Metis Provisional Government court-martial, sentences Thomas Scott to death; Charles Arkoll Boulton 1841-1899 sentenced to death but his life is spared.

1841

Montreal Quebec – Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, starts a 20 month-long round the world trip.

1838

Pelee Island Ontario – John Maitland routs Van Rensselaer and supporters of Upper Canadian rebels who captured Pelee Island on February 2; routed by regulars of 32nd and 83rd Regiments and the Essex Militia.

1722

Quebec Quebec – Council divides New France into parishes; Quebec has 41, Three Rivers 13 and Montreal 28.

Washington DC – US Congress passes first law overriding a presidential veto – John Tyler’s.

1845

Florida – Florida admitted as the 27th state of the Union.

1791

Philadelphia Pennsylvania – Congress establishes the US Mint.

1634

Boston Massachusetts- Opening of the first tavern in Boston.

78 AD

India – Origin of Saka Era in India.

Today’s Global Birthdays…

1975

USA – David Faustino, actor, I Had Three Wives, Bud in Married With Children.

1962

East St Louis Illinois – Jackie Joyner-Kersee, heptathlete, Olympic Gold Medal in 1988l first woman to hold world record in the heptathlon: 7,044 points (1992); first athlete to win multi-event medals in 3 Olympics (pentathlon, long jump).

<!– “We should be like monks going about in sandals and bare garments. Our purpose is to guard and resurrect the human body. It should be as holy as our purpose.”Dr. Norman Bethune
on the medical profession
to his wife, Frances
1935 –>